Month: January 2020

In 2008, our very good friends moved to California to pursue church planting. It was such a big loss for me. Not only had I lost my framily (friend+family), but the traditions we had established with them disappeared too. Suddenly we found ourselves faced with the dilemma of what to do around the different holidays and especially Christmastime since we didn’t have any family in town. We still traveled to Chicago to see Putty’s family, but we didn’t have our Champaign-based holidays anymore. We had to change with our circumstances and yet again (see previous post), make new holiday traditions.

Well, wouldn’t you know, Putty’s brother, Dan, ended up moving to Champaign and now we had real, blood family in the same town as us! We included him in as many things as we could and we often had similar friend groups. It was fun to have someone around who was actually related to us! Over the years Dan became an adopted brother to my siblings as well and even accompanied us on a family vacation up North one year.

Of course, we loved having him with us, but part of this trip up North came out of necessity. You see, it costs a lot more to travel to Florida around the holidays than at other times. Sadly, Putty’s parents had to relocate to Florida for Dad Putman’s job just as we were pregnant with our first child. This was a loss for us. Now the family that lived the closest to us became the furthest away family! Once again we were faced with making adjustments to holiday interactions because most of our family was now a bit too far to visit with at this time of year. After working out some new holiday routines, we became comfortable with how things were going.

But, things weren’t going to stay this way for long! When pregnant with our second child a few years later, my brother and sister-in-law started talking with us about moving back to the midwest from Colorado. I so longed to have them nearby, but I knew it was possible they’d move to Minnesota and not Champaign. Joy of joys, they decided to move here! Now we had two brothers and family close by for the holidays and special occasions again! We established our own special ways to celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter together, not to mention birthdays and other special events. It was great! It took some relational work, but it all came together so nicely.

A year later, my mother moved to town and yet again we made adjustments as we included her in our local celebrations and figured out how to participate in travel and visits with the family that still lived in other parts of the country. I couldn’t believe it, though. In two years I had 4 more people move to our town (brother, sister-in-law, niece, and mother)! What a delightful change! I actually had family living near me! I never would have guessed that this would happen. There was nothing besides us, in Champaign to draw our family here, except our amazing church! Having more family here was wonderful, but also stressful as we navigated new relationships. Once again, we figured it out.

I didn’t realize how different relational interactions would be between a  ‘visiting relationship’ and a ‘local relationship’ until I had experienced both types with the same person/people. With my Mom and brother’s family, we had to express our expectations to each other in order to figure out what we all wanted from each other since we were so physically close now. Did we want weekly visits or just monthly? Did we expect to see each other on certain holidays or did we want the freedom to travel or just be alone? There was a lot to figure out once again, but we did it! Family was being built little by little, change by change.

However, in 2017 things changed… a lot! We had 13 new family members move to our area and one join by marriage. We gained a sister-in-law when Putty’s brother married his wonderful fiancee. Then in the Fall, within one week of each other, the other two families moved here!  My father- and mother-in-law celebrated retirement and moved to Urbana to be near their sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren. My sister and her husband moved here with their nine kids too, just around the corner! Within one year, what we had figured out for holiday celebrations with 12 local family members, we now needed to adjust to include 26 local family members! (This year, we welcomed another nephew to our happy crew!)

It was hard. I’m not going to lie. I had two sides of families to manage expectations and give equally to around the holidays. (That was part of the problem right there! I thought I had to manage others’ expectations instead of letting them take responsibility for themselves.) Some people wanted more holiday togetherness than others and that resulted in a lot of stress on my part. What if I end up giving two times the attention to one side of the family and not enough to the other? What if one sibling finds out I spent time with this other sibling in this specific way? Will there be jealousy? And perhaps the most emotionally straining for me, what if the grandparents feel like there’s an unequal balance of time with the kids and harbor resentment? I hoped everyone would tell me what they needed because my mind just made up all sorts of stories otherwise – and usually the worst case scenario!

We tried this. We tried that. We did this celebration, we did that celebration. We included these people for one event. We included the others for another event. It was enough to make my anxiety levels rise. And they did too. I had a lot of swirling thoughts in my mind about what to do. I felt stuck in my decision making – always deferring to what I thought the family members would want and not thinking about what I wanted. When I finally did make a decision, I often ended up second guessing it. I had such hard time differentiating what I needed and what I ‘should’ do for others, that I knew it was time to bring these problems to my counselor.

I’d been seeing a great counselor whose opinion I valued and trusted. He challenged me to sort through my expectations, my stress, and then he helped me learn how to manage it all. With my new tools in place, I worked to understand better how to more naturally build family togetherness and not force it to happen.

We made it through those first two years, but not without some casualties of feelings. It was hard to express our feelings and expectations to each other. It felt really vulnerable, even though these people were family members that I loved so much and generally felt very safe with. I did hold on to one specific hope though – the two year mark. Over the years I came to see a pattern that after about two years there’s a tipping point in new or changed relationships. Things seem to even out and a more natural relationship begins to form. We had seen this repeatedly each time a new family member moved to town. Each time we had to adjust from ‘visiting relationships’ to ‘local relationships’ with every person. I knew this could happen again, even with 14 relationships changing all at once. We could do this!

Finally, this year… THIS YEAR, I noticed the shift for myself, and subsequently ALL MY LOCAL FAMILY.  This year, I felt different heading into the holidays. I felt more settled within myself. That settling helped me think more clearly. Instead of worry, anxiety and uncertainty, I had hope and expectation for the family times we set aside from October through December.

It’s been just over two years since the last people moved here. We’ve all come to know each other so much better over these past two years and we feel so much more at ease with one another. We’ve had hard conversations that have yielded understanding of one another and we’ve been able to build relationally because of them. 

This year, after being inspired by some of Putty’s team-building ideas, I hijacked one of them for our family! Each Sunday from Thanksgiving through Christmas (totaling four), we held a large family movie night in our living room. Everyone came with snack foods for our supper and we all talked together in the kitchen while making up our plates. Then we enthusiastically headed to the living room where we tuned in to the movie for that night. 

Seeing all the cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents choosing to participate together in this event week after week warmed my heart. The feelings of familiarity and ease only grew as we gathered each week. There were so many smiles and hugs and laughs. This year, we hit our stride. This year, our family togetherness soared to a new height and with it, all the holiday events. It leaves me looking forward to next year. I can see how our family has really been built up over these past two years.

You know, I didn’t know in advance how often my holiday ‘traditions’ would end up changing from year to year. I didn’t know that it’d be challenging at times. But, I have discovered that being flexible in this situation was really helpful. I learned that saying the hard things to each other opens us up to grow deeper relationally so that we can actually increase the family togetherness around the holidays. And you know what else? Sometimes it’s okay to throw something completely new into the mix to see if it floats or sinks. No matter which it does, it’ll still create memories. 🙂 

Thinking all was clear, I pulled out to make a right-hand turn from a full stop. Just before I really got going, I saw a vehicle coming my way and quickly pressed the brakes. The driver behind me was already looking at the intersection to make her right turn and didn’t notice that I had suddenly stopped. She hit me at a very slow speed, but still, it totaled my car and gave me a sore neck. This all happened just days before my wedding while moving my things down to my future apartment. Note to everyone, a Chevy Impala can total a Saturn Twin Cam when it hits from behind at 5 or less miles per hour!

As you might expect, I was really excited to marry Putty and start the next part of my life with him! He moved to Champaign a year before I did so that he could begin his graduate program. He lived with three other guys at that time, all friends from childhood who were working towards their undergraduate degrees. When I joined him in my new town after our wedding, I only knew Putty and these three guys. For a girl who chose her college based on proximity to home (I wanted it as close as I could get) I deeply felt the loss of leaving everything familiar behind. I was starting from scratch – no friends, no family. 

This has been a pretty regular part of my life. I’ve ‘started over’ time and time again – but always with family. My first move came the summer before 1st grade. I was heartbroken to leave the only place and people I had ever known. I didn’t know what to expect, but moving is the adults choice and not the child’s choice. We lived in our new town for quite a few years until, in my child’s mind, all chaos broke loose – my parents got divorced.

There were many problems surrounding my parent’s divorce. It was messy and messy in a small town isn’t fun. When I was in 4th grade and after seeking work over and over again, my Mom realized we’d have to move from that smallish town to a larger one just so she could find work and support us. This was the most painful move for me. I had created a new life in this place and most of my formative years were spent in the small community we had around us. It was hard to face moving to a new place, and going from a small private school to a big public school.

Luckily, I was fairly outgoing and made friends easily. I also had family around me, some aunts, an uncle, and cousins. It ended up being a nice time until after a year and half we had to move back to the town where my dad lived because he was diagnosed with cancer. We didn’t know how long he had to live and it was important for us to be near him. I had mixed feelings about this move. I was excited to be near my dad and see my old friends again, but I was sad to leave my new friends and apprehensive about how things would be with a new step-mom, step-sister, church, and school.

This was one of the hardest times in my childhood. Nothing was easy and it was like swimming upstream in the social and family arenas. My friends from before had moved on from me, so it was very much like starting over again. I had trouble being my own person and so I tended to have the same friends as my step-sister who was the same age as me and in the same grade & school as me. There were a few people that were ‘my own’ but it was hard to create a deep relationship with them because they lived in the neighboring towns.

After a year and a half in this location, it was apparent we had to move again. Dad was doing better (Praise the Lord!) and we were doing worse. With all these things in mind, Mom made the choice to move us yet again. I felt like a ping-pong ball between Iowa and Minnesota. We finally settled in Minnesota. We moved to one house for a month and I started the first 2 weeks of 8th grade. Then we got permanent housing on Bethel College’s family housing. Mom started her Master’s degree program while working and I began my new 8th grade class.

We stayed in this school district throughout the remainder of my schooling and when it came time to choose a college, I chose Bethel College. It was close and I had control to stay in this place that was comfortable, safe and familiar. I was at peace and finally found my home. But, as much as I wanted to stay in Minnesota, my fiancee felt it was the right call to move to Champaign for his Doctoral program. So, yet again, I faced the challenge of starting all over again, from scratch.

I struggled the first year to really find my place and my ‘people.’ I mostly got to know my colleagues at work and Putty’s already established friend groups. I was still longing for a best friend. I felt lonely a lot and calling my family on the phone wasn’t enough to fill me up. I needed local friends and dare I say, family.

It wasn’t until our realtor suggested we meet her daughter and son-in-law. At first we just dismissed the idea, but she brought it up a few times and that seemed odd. So, eventually we were all able to have a meal together and we really hit it off! In addition, we found out that we lived within walking distance from each other. Over the next few months, our friendship became much more of a family relationship as we began seeing each other regularly and spending time with their local families.

Eventually, not only did these two become our framily (friend+family), but I also became framily with Putty’s childhood friends who were in town. We all became very close. We didn’t have that many opportunities to be with family on every holiday, and definitely not around Christmastime. The cold and sometimes unpredictable weather made it difficult to plan any travel in the winter. And more than that, we wanted to create a tradition of being at home on Christmas morning, so that really meant no traveling around Christmas.

So, we established our own holiday traditions based around our friend groups. We had an annual gingerbread decorating party for a few years that was a blast! We had some very creative displays. Every Christmas Eve we went to our friend’s party to visit with others who were in the area for the holiday and of course, eat good food! The most precious tradition that we only had for a few years, but was so intimate and special, was spending Christmas afternoon at our framily’s house around the corner, just the four of us, playing games, talking, and spending time together. 

It was through these close friend relationships that I learned how to create and build family outside of my traditional family. I learned to take what I had around me and not only to make the most of it, but build it into something. The exciting part is that in the end, I came to understand that I wasn’t settling for something second-class, but instead I was gaining a new normal that I loved and looked forward to. I looked forward to the new traditions and close-knit feeling for kinship from this group. It was all very special. I truly had a sense of family togetherness with my friends. I learned that friends can be family too! It doesn’t have to mean something is missing from my life, it actually means that something has been added!

I’m really thankful for the friends who have been around me all these years, but surprisingly, family has begun to move close by. Next time I’ll post about how that yet again caused me to shift my family paradigms and learn how to build family with local family.